Although the gist of what you said was true, you can always modify it to make it easier to get the message across. Use your "skillful means" as the Buddhists ususally say. Something like:If a wicked man continues with his evil course without any repentance, then God won't be able to help him right? It's important that this man needs to make every effort to stop his unwholesome action and try to do lots of wholesome ones. Your religion might call this a re-connection with God. We simply call this Kamma.

I think the best thing would be to point out that the Buddha never taught about or acknowledged that a "God" (with a capital "G") existed so it is a concept which is foreign to Buddhism.....what I have done in the past when people talk about that "God" thing is to simply tell them that I don't know what they mean by "God" and could they please explain it to me.....when they give their explanation I have always been able to honestly reply that I have never experienced such a strange thing and so I really have no opinion about it but I'll keep my eyes open for any possible hints that such a strange thing exists.chownah

The famed meeting between the Elder Assaji & Sariputta (also known as Upatissa, who later became one of the two great chief disciples of the Buddha, the other being his own friend, Maha Mogallana) which we got the 'hallmark' verse here. The whole text is here

After they had exchanged the usual courteous greetings. Upatissa said: "Serene are your features, friend. Pure and bright is your complexion. Under whom, friend, have you gone forth as an ascetic? Who is your teacher and whose doctrine do you profess?"

Assaji replied: "There is, O friend, the Great Recluse, the scion of the Sakyas, who has gone forth from the Sakya clan. Under that Blessed One I have gone forth. That Blessed One is my teacher and it is his Dhamma that I profess."

"What does the venerable one's master teach, what does he proclaim?"

Questioned thus, the Elder Assaji thought to himself: "These wandering ascetics are opposed to the Buddha's dispensation. I shall show him how profound this dispensation is." So he said: "I am but new to the training, friend. It is not long since I went forth from home, and I came but recently to this teaching and discipline. I cannot explain the Dhamma in detail to you."

The wanderer replied: "I am called Upatissa, friend. Please tell me according to your ability, be it much or little. It will be my task to penetrate its meaning by way of a hundred or a thousand methods." And he added:"Be it little or much that you can tell, the meaning only, please proclaim to me! To know the meaning is my sole desire; Of no avail to me are many words."

In response, the Elder Assaji uttered this stanza:"Of all those things that from a cause arise, Tathagata the cause thereof has told; And how they cease to be, that too he tells, This is the doctrine of the Great Recluse."[2]

Upon hearing the first two lines, Upatissa became established in the Path of stream-entry, and to the ending of the last two lines he already listened as a stream-winner.[2] "Ye dhamma hetuppabhava tesam hetum tathagato aha, tesañca yo nirodho evamvadi mahasamano 'ti." This gatha was later to become one of the best-known and most widely-disseminated stanzas of Buddhism, standing for all time as a reminder of Sariputta's first contact with the Dhamma and also as a worthy memorial to Assaji, his great arahant teacher. Spoken at a time when the principle of causality was not accorded the prominence it enjoys today in philosophical thought, its impact on the minds of the early Buddhists must have been revolutionary.

Yet another shorter one hereTo avoid all evil, to cultivate good, and to cleanse one's mind — this is the teaching of the Buddhas.The Story of the Question Raised by Thera AnandaOn one occasion, Thera Ananda asked the Buddha whether the Fundamental Instructions to bhikkhus given by the preceding Buddhas were the same as those of the Buddha himself. To him the Buddha replied that the instructions given by all the Buddhas are as given in the following verses:Then the Buddha spoke in verse as follows:Not to do evil, to cultivate merit, to purify one's mind - this is the Teaching of the Buddhas.

Last edited by plwk on Fri Oct 19, 2012 12:14 am, edited 1 time in total.

Bhikkhus, if you develop and make much this one thing, it invariably leads to weariness, cessation, appeasement, realization and extinction. What is it? It is recollecting the Enlightened One. If this single thing is recollected and made much, it invariably leads to weariness, cessation, appeasement, realization and extinction.Anguttara-Nikaya: Ekanipata: Ekadhammapali: PañhamavaggaBuddhanussatiSCVSMVMMBS